Project Jericho
by RavenIdiot
Summary: Wall-Verse. Things never seemed to change before Peter came, but now Peter's waging war on the Wall and the dream is retaliating. Sylar struggles with trying to connect to the angered empath, who struggles with adjusting to a world void of life. Arguments, snarky humor, fights, misunderstandings, despair, boredom, hobbies & inventive pastimes, & addressing issues.
1. Chapter 1: Kodokushi

Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes, but I do have heroes.

Author's Note: Google maps is awesome.

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===Chapter 1: Kodokushi===

"Enjoy Hell."

Sylar glanced around the brightly colored living room, wondering who'd spoken. _Empty. No one. Must just have thought it._

After all, the last time he was here he had been trapped in that banal policeman's head. Watching some drab middle-aged cop spoon applesauce all over his illegitimate toddler's face while watching football- day after monotonous day. No body, no powers, no control- _It doesn't get much closer to hell than that_.

But that was _so _two months ago. Now he needed Parkman's help to suppress his powers, before he decided to come to his senses, screw that time-traveler's stupid warning, and forget the whole thing.

"Parkman?" He called impatiently, surprising himself with how loudly his voice seemed to echoed through the looming silence. "Parkman?" He called again, this time much lower.

_No answer. _Sylar concentrated on tapping into his enhanced-hearing, but he still couldn't make out any heartbeats or breathing in the area- in fact, he couldn't make out anything above the low hum of the AC.

Funny, he hadn't had trouble controlling that particular ability since that geneticist- Mohinder wasn't it? (Indian names always gave him trouble: another reason to regret not taking that waitress' power back in Texas. _That _and all he got for sparing her life was a stupid warning about dying alone. 'Perfect Memory' would have helped a lot when Angela and her agents decided to try to suppress his memories and replace them with her son's.) Anyhow, he hadn't had issues with his enhanced hearing since that day in- he was pretty sure it was 'Mohinder'- since that day in _Mohinder_'s apartment when the geneticist had duct-taped him to a chair and used his own ability against him. His head still hummed at the memory of the tuning fork's shrill frequency screeching in his hyper sensitive ears.

_Right- Matt Parkman, _Sylar reminded himself, shaking his head lightly, to clear it of the bothersome memory.

A quick stroll through the Parkmans' clownishly-colored little L.A. home confirmed that the family was out. _Funny, isn't it past little Matty's bedtime? _Sylar wondered briefly, before catching himself. _Ugh, I hate that I _know _that! It's so... 'domestic'._

But he was right. The Parkmans' would have left their son with a sitter if they were going out for the evening. Unless... _no_, how could they have known he was coming? _He_ hadn't even know he'd be coming! Matt had many abilities, but he couldn't tell the future- no wait, scratch that, hadn't he picked up _Future Painting_from his pet turtle or something?

_Dang, that just makes this that much harder, _Sylar realized with annoyance, as he reached for the closest wall to interrogate it on where the Parkmans went. But as he felt the smooth drywall beneath his palm and closed his eyes to concentrate on the clairsentience he'd gotten from Bridget Bailey (the company agent Angela Petrelli had all but gift-wrapped for him) all he could see was the back of his eyelids. _So much for walls having ears. _

Sylar quickly reached out and grabbed the front doorknob instead. Still nothing. Now that couldn't be right. What, did Parkman mind control all of the inanimate objects in his house to not snitch on him before leaving? Could he even _do _that?

_Just how many powers does that dyslexic cop have stowed in that thick cranium of his anyhow... _Sylar wondered absently, suddenly getting a _new_ idea on how Matt Parkman might be able to 'help' him get back on his game. But he'd still have to _find _him first.

Sylar tried the doorknob again, but it still wasn't talking, so he raised a hand to knock the uncooperative door off its hinges with his telekinesis. And again, nothing happened. That's when Sylar finally cued in that his powers were being suppressed. Now who would be after him with the Haitian's power-blocking ability? Sylar began scanning the room for a certain power-mimicking Italian.

"Peter? I know you're here Peter, and I know what you want. But it's no use. He's gone. You hear me? Nathan's _dead_. It's only _me_ now. Only _me _and _you_, so if you're here it better be for revenge." Sylar stalked around pensively, turning corners with caution, half expecting a wooden two-by-four to come out of nowhere and hit him over the head. "You were always good at hide-and-seek. Of course _some_ might say moving from one spot to another is more like hide-_run_-and-seek, but they're dead; so I guess it doesn't matter, now does it?" Sylar goaded, purposefully using one Nathan's memories to try to bait Peter out. But the suspected ambush never came, and the empty house began to feel considerably more disconcerting with every moment of unadulterated quiet.

Finally Sylar couldn't take it anymore and he charged out the door to check if the elusive empath was hiding in the bushes or some equally ridiculous place. But as he stepped out into the driveway he spotted the Parkman's family car still parked right next to Mrs. Parkman's smaller Sedan. _What'd they do, __walk__? _It was possible little Matty might have used his 'battery' power to stop the cars or something, Sylar had seen the little tyke do it often enough when he'd been in Matt's head. It had been a source of much inconvenience for his parents.

It was then that Sylar noticed the streets. They were filled with the usual bustle of cars, only frozen in place like a paused movie. Like time had simply stopped.

_Oh great, so Peter and that time-manipulating Asian with the sword are working together again. Perfect. Just perfect. Now I have to look out for a crazy katana-wielding time-traveler as well as a vengeful power-blocker! _But then Sylar rationalized that if the Asian was using his power, than they must be out of Peter's field of blocking. He raised his hand to flip one of the stilled cars over with his telekinesis, but the vehicle stayed rooted in its place in the frozen traffic, as if in sheer mockery of the edgy serial killer.

That's when he figured out what was really off. The car was empty. All of the cars were empty. As were the sidewalks.

Not a soul in sight or a sound in flight; not so much as a bird. It was like every trace of anatomical life had just up and disappeared.

With no little trepidation, and still very alert to any signs of ambuscade, Sylar approached the car he had failed to psychically flip. The windows were cracked open and the keys were still in the ignition. Sylar reached a jacketed arm through one of the windows, pulled up the lock-pin, opened the door, and slid into the driver's seat. The engine hummed to life when he turned the key, and he began the long headache of weaving it in and out of the other stilled vehicles cluttering the streets, making his way through the ghostly city of L.A..

Whether power-related, virus-related, or some new kind of weapon or bomb for destroying biological life, there had to be an explanation for whatever was going on here, and he wasn't going to stop till he knew _exactly _what it was.

It normally took anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour to make it out of Los Angeles from Parkman's house, but it was well past midnight by the time Sylar finally made it to Barstow Freeway, mostly due to time lost switching cars whenever the frozen traffic got too tight to maneuver through.

His trip pretty much confirmed his suspicions that the second most populated city in all of America was now nothing more than an empty shell, and he was fairly sure he could narrow it down to either the result of a virus or weapon. He'd accidentally cut his arm earlier on the glass of a car window he'd had to bash in to get unlocked, and even though his other powers seemed to be gone for the time being, his regen was still working just fine. Which was probably how he'd survived whatever disaster or foreign terrorist attack had occurred here.

Once he'd gotten onto the freeway it was pretty much nothing but open road and the occasional empty car or truck. Till he made it to Las Vegas_, _which he found to be just as empty and lifeless as Los Angeles and all the smaller cities in between. As a tangerine orange sunset peeked over the _New York New York Hotel and Casino _skyline to the east, Sylar began to wonder just how far the void of life stretched, and what effects this massive attack/disaster would have on the world. If it was a deliberate attack on America then there would be war, that much was certain. But what if it wasn't? Would our nation's enemies try to take advantage of our misfortune? Would our allies come to our aid? How many were dead? Over 4,600,000, at least. There had never been a greater loss of life on American soil from a single catastrophe, and even though Sylar wasn't what one would call a religious man of late, and God (if he existed) had probably blacklisted him half a dozen murders ago, he still uttered a silent prayer for the families left behind. If there even was anyone left behind.

Sylar had figured out pretty soon that radio was down when he'd only gotten static on the different car radios he'd tried listening to on the trip up to Vegas. But whatever had happened didn't seem to have affected the power grids, since the casinos and street lights were all still shining the multi-colored blend that Vegas was famous for. So Sylar sought out a desk computer in one of the nearby casinos to see if he could access the internet and maybe find some sort of news coverage.

The word 'Disconnected' blinked back at him from the laptop's blue screen. _Yeah, no kidding_, Sylar thought cynically. It was referring to the internet connection, but it also seemed to sum up Sylar's present situation quite nicely.

He didn't want to stay in Vegas any longer than he had to- _too many of Nathan's memories connected to this place_- Sylar didn't feel like himself. And besides, he had to see how far this mysterious holocaust spanned. So he hit the road again, employing his previous tactic of skipping from car to car, heading north on Interstate 15 and turning east on 70.

The cross-country car trip that would have been mere days under usual circumstances, ended up taking almost a week with all the unmoving traffic blocking the major roads of the many cities along Interstate 70. And everywhere he went it was the same- lifeless abandoned city after city.

Most were places he had never been to before himself, but had memories of from the cross-country road trip Nathan had taken Peter on when he was fifteen. Just the two of them and the open road. Peter had loved that road trip, and it remained one of the many highlights of the brother's relationship. The only road trip Sylar had ever been taken on was when his father had sold him to a watchmaker and killed his mother. "And people wondered _why _I turned out the way I did," Sylar scoffed, until he realized he was talking to himself.

Everything was exactly as Nathan had remembered it, except for the total lack of life- no people, animals, or even bugs. Just plants, fields, streets, buildings, and a sense of complete and utter desolation that stretched on for miles and miles.

Whatever had happened was massive, and Sylar began to fear it was larger than just the USA. Breaking into a government building in Topeka, Sylar found a computer logged onto the government mainframe, with live satellite feeds from around the world. Dread welled up inside him as he scrolled through feeds from the major cities of the world. Whatever had happened wasn't just a national disaster- it was a _global _disaster.

Everyone, _everything_, was dead except for him. The realization was staggering.

But if his cellular regeneration had saved him from whatever had wiped out all life on the planet, that meant there was at least one other person out there- two if he was lucky.

As he continued making his way east to Virginia, Sylar kept tabs on the losses.

Los Angeles, CA- previous population; 3,819,702.  
Las Vegas, NV- previous population; 589,317.  
Grand Junction, CO- previous population; 58,704.  
Denver, CO- previous population; 619,968.  
Aurora, CO- previous population; 332,354.  
Hays, KS- previous population; 20,717.  
Salina, KS- previous population; 47,910.  
Junction City, KS- previous population; 24,015.  
Topeka, KS- previous population; 128,188.  
Lawrence, KS- previous population; 88,727.  
Kansas City, KS- previous population; 146,453.  
Kansas City, MO- previous population; 463,202.  
Blue Springs, MO- previous population; 52,749.  
Columbia, MO- previous population; 110,438.  
Saint Louis, MO- previous population; 318,069.  
Evansville, IN- previous population; 117,825.  
Louisville, KY- previous population; 253,128.  
Lexington, KY- previous population; 301,569.  
Charleston, WV- previous population; 51,177.  
Arlington, VA- previous population; 216,004. Current population; hopefully at least one.

Sylar had visited Arlington University only hours before the Armageddon, but he still had some difficulties re-locating Claire's dorm room without his clairsentience. After systematically checking over twenty-five rooms, he finally found it; grey curtains, a lime-green lamp on the windowsill, a candle in the shape of a capital 'G', the clover-pattern pillow on Claire's bed, and of course- a tell-tale notepad with bold letters spelling 'Claire's Diary' on a shelf.

Claire wasn't there, but on her bed was a faded teddy-bear, just a shade or two off white. Sylar picked it up and turned it over in his hands. The fabric was rough from too many times in the washer machine, but it was kept for a different kind of comfort. Sylar recognized it from the time he'd read Claire's thoughts and emotions with Lydia's power. It was the first one Bennet had ever gotten her, and it held huge emotional significance to her. If she had survived as he had, she'd be mourning her adoptive father now, and this would be the first thing she'd come for. _So where is she?_

As they days went by and Claire remained absent, Sylar began to form theories. Enemies of Bennet's could have infected her with the Shanti Virus to get back at the him. Or the Haitian could have been with her when the whole kill-everything-bomb/virus hit, and his power-blocking field prevented her regen from saving her. It was actually more than likely. The Haitian was a close friend of Bennet's, and the ex-Company man had always had an (admittedly illogical) habbit of asking him to look after his pig-headed rapid-regen daughter.

Finally the waiting and college cafeteria meals got too much for Sylar, so he made his way to New York, in the unlikely hope that Peter had had Claire's ability when it happened.

Three weeks of turning Manhattan upside down for the Idealistic Italian dissuaded that small hope, and Sylar finally had to admit to himself that he was in denial.

So this was it- the one thing worse than dying alone. _Living _Alone.

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Author's note: Kodokushi is a Japanese term which literally translates as "lonely death."


	2. Chapter 2: Welcome to Hell

Disclaimer: I claim the words, not the fandom.

Author's note: Constructive criticism is welcome, as is high praise, or flaming hate, or any kind or feedback. Just not trolling. If you're a troll go eat a billy goats gruff and leave me be!

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===Chapter 2: Welcome to Hell===

There was an old Russian proverb that went; 'You get used to everything- even hell.'

Sylar had never fully appreciated the truth in those words before Armageddon had set in, and he'd returned to the only place that'd ever really felt like home to him- well, to _Nathan_. Nowhere had ever really felt like home to _him_. But he wasn't above riding off of second hand emotions to get that sense of belonging.

Besides, Manhattan was convenient. He knew the city's layout like the back of his hand, _or Nathan's hand, or Matt's hand, or agent Taub's hand_- Sylar caught himself. _Why is it always about someone else, even when I'm the only one left? My life, my hand! I know this city like the back of __my_ _hand! Why can't it just be that simple? _There was, of course, no good answer to that.

For reasons Sylar couldn't fathom, Manhattan seemed somehow less empty than the rest of the world. Like there was simply more in it. It was also close enough to Queens to feel comfortably familiar to him, without being so close as to constantly remind him of his past life there. The street curb where he killed the Indian geneticist who'd made perhaps the biggest scientific discovery of all time, the rafter in his workshop that he'd hung a noose from, intending to end his life, the look of pure disgust in his mother's eyes before he'd killed her- those weren't things he wanted to face up to. He'd had to anyhow, just to pick up some of his things from his old shop, but he wasn't about to settle down there. Queens was Gabriel's city, not his. That ship had sailed. And sunk.

Apartment hunting had taken only a few days. He'd already been all over searching for Peter, and he already knew what he was looking for. Someplace small, less space to fill. He couldn't stand seeing more emptiness than he already had to. And it had to be overlooking the bay. He didn't want to have to see the dead city out his window every day.

He'd finally decided on an apartment room in the downtown district, overlooking Upper Bay and Liberty Island. He wasn't the patriotic sort, but it felt good having such a coveted view. The apartment would have cost him an arm and a leg, and probably a kidney, if there was anyone left to demand rent. But there wasn't. Lucky him.

The apartment was small, tiny even, but it still seemed so empty. Too empty. Sylar took to scouring the city for things of value to bring back to his residence.

It was amazing how one could fall so easily into such mundane routines. He'd wake up, get dressed, eat canned fish, take his stolen grocery cart down the elevator, to the closest library, and then spend the rest of the day systematically skimming through every _single _book, searching for the precious few containing actual words inside. Another strange quirk of the bomb/virus/superpower-gone-horribly-wrong; for some reason it had affected the books, washing their pages clean of information, leaving only blank paper. He had speculated at first that the world-ending-event was something designed specifically to target intelligence, in any form, but that theory had died when he started finding some familiar titles that were still completely intact. But none he hadn't read before, and he was starving for something new to stimulate his mind.

He would usually give up at about noon, spend a few hours searching buildings picked at random for clocks, watches, timers, calendars, or anything else remotely useful, and then he'd wheel his cart of pre-read books and scavenged timepieces home, eat more canned fish, reread whatever books he'd found that day, and then fall asleep on his couch. Just to repeat the whole process over again the next morning.

It was mindless. Repetitive. Stale.

Occasionally he'd break out of the rut he'd fallen into. He'd try something new, like cooking; take up a project, like putting up shelves in his apartment; or find a new hobby, like graffitiing swear words on churches. But he'd always fall back to the same dry cycle of 'wake up, eat, wander around aimlessly looking for something to fill the time, give up, eat, go to bed. Wake up.'

Despite his uninspired existence, he still lived every day with the same keen alertness as when he'd had his powers, felt every moment as time passed, heard every minute with every tick of every clock and every swing of every pendulum, timing eternity as it passed.

It was his own personal purgatory, but he'd become resigned to it. Cause what choice did he have? His regeneration prevented him from escaping through suicide, despite his attempts, or from numbing himself to it with drugs or alcohol. It was ironic really, he'd sought immortality believing it was the only thing that could keep him _out_ of hell, and now it was the only thing keeping him _in_ it's equivalent. Or perhaps he _had_ died and this really _was _hell. It seemed cosmically designed for him in any case, like poetic justice that he should live each day regretting every murder he'd ever committed more keenly than ever before, now that he'd do anything to have even one of the countless, nameless, meaningless people he'd killed here with him, to quell the gut-wrenching loneliness in his chest.

The silence was almost more unbearable than the loneliness. It physically _hurt_. Which was one of the reasons he'd surrounded himself with clocks. They filled the silence, kept him sane, gave him something to do, something to care about.

He was sorting through the small collection of wristwatches he'd found a few days ago, tucked away in a dusty desk in one of the countless office buildings. They were expensive, but ill-kept; probably gifts, never worn. _Such a waste._ Not one had the right time. Each suffering from different problems, each uniquely troubled. _Rusted pinion, malfunctioning gears, over-wound springs, hands stuck together... holding hands... What am I thinking? Clocks. Can't hold clock hands. Stupid thought._

Then he heard it. A resounding noise. Something besides the tick of his clocks and the beat of his heart. Something foreign, sending vibrations through his very frame. His head shot up immediately, clocks forgotten.

And then, again, it sounded, echoing through the world like the steady beat of a drum. And again, louder. Sylar was on his feet and out his door before he even knew what he was doing, adrenalin rushing through his veins, ushering him onward. He took the stairs, unable to wait for the elevator, pulling on the coat he'd habitually grabbed on his way out, as he descended the staircases at breakneck speed. He halted abruptly when he stepped out into the street. It was just as he'd left it, just as it always was, empty. And the oppressing silence was back with a vengeance, encompassing him and making him feel suddenly very small and insignificant. So he rebelled.

"Hello?" His voice felt disused, and it wasn't as loud as he'd wanted it. So he began walking and tried again. "Hello!" That was better, louder, almost got an echo even.

Then he heard it, two violent bangs on the blacktop behind him. He could feel the vibrations through his soles. Sylar turned cautiously, unsure of what he'd find.

And there he stood, metal pipe in hand, eyes cold and piercing, fixed on Sylar as if this was the ultimate showdown between good and evil, him and Sylar, and he wanted nothing more than to kill the the stunned watchmaker where he stood, in the most brutal way possible. "Peter?" He could hardly believe it. Even with murderous intent written in every subtle detail of his expression and stance, the rage-filled Italian was still the most perfect thing Sylar had ever set eyes on.

He could see Peter brace himself, take a deep lord-help-me breath, and begin walking towards him, tossing the pipe aside as if to get rid of the temptation.

"Is that really you?" Sylar asked in wonder, as they drew closer and the details became clearer. The hazel of his eyes, his dark bangs wisping over his brow on the right side, the subtle scar above his lip- it all looked so... _tangible_.

Sylar reached out to touch, fingers itching to feel, to validate this. He hesitated just an inch from his goal, fully expecting his hand to pass through the mirage in front of him and for the image of Peter to disappear like smoke.

"I came to get you outta here." Every nuance of his voice echoed perfectly in Sylar's ears. It'd been _so _damn long since he'd last heard another voice. And Peter's familiar determined tone was like auditory gold.

Sylar breached the inch, and his hand came in delightful contact with Peter's tensed shoulder. He could feel Peter's body heat emanating from beneath the fabric of his coat, warm and unmistakably human. His imagination wasn't this good. This _had _to be real. "It is you isn't it?" he breathed.

All the while Peter's eyes followed him, watching warily. It was clear the contact was unwanted, but nevertheless unprevented. Sylar left his hand on Peter's shoulder a beat longer than he felt he should, but not half as long as he would have liked, before letting it fall back to his side.

"I thought I was alone here, that everyone was dead," Sylar explained, the words coming out in a rush. "What are you doing here?" _You're_ _not supposed to be in hell- if you didn't make it into heaven then there's no hope for anyone._

"I came to drag your sorry ass out of here, now lets go," Peter flippantly replied, with a curt nod of his head.

"There is no getting out of here, Peter." Sylar almost laughed out loud at the Italian's almost childlike ignorance. "I've tried, for three years."

"Three years?" Peter echoed, his lips twisting up in a sardonic half smile. "What are you talking about? It's been three _hours_."

"Wait a minute," _that's not true. _And then it dawned on Sylar how delirious he was being. All this time he'd been looking for Peter, hoping and dreaming the empath had survived, refusing to give up on him even long after he'd given up on Claire. Of course his mind would use Peter to mess with him, torture him. "You're not really here, you're not real." Sylar backed away, eyeing his hallucination guardedly. "This is my mind isn't it? This is my mind playing tricks on me. It's part of my punishment isn't it? You think I'm gonna let you taunt me?" Sylar demanded, getting angry. "You stay away," he warned, backing off from the cruel illusion as if it were diseased, before breaking into an all out run. "If you follow me I will kill you, do you understand me!"

"Sylar!"

He could hear the hallucination's rapid footfall behind him, running to try and keep up, but he didn't look back. He would _not _give in to madness- his sanity was too dear. Sylar ran down the road, turned the bend, dashed through the front doors to his condominium, and headed straight for the elevator. He caught a brief glimpse of Peter yelling at him to 'stop' before the elevator doors closed behind him, safely shutting out the delirium. But when he reached his floor he could still hear the hallucination's rapid footfall coming from the stairwell.

Sylar made a break for his room, slamming and bolting the door shut behind him. He could hear the stairwell's door swing on it's rusty hinges, hear the maddening footfall coming down the hallway, systematically knocking in doors as it drew nearer. Sylar reached for the hammer on his shelf, eyes fixed on his bloodstained door. He felt desperate, panicked, and trapped.

Moments later his door was busted in with near-explosive force, and the mirage of Peter was poking his head in cautiously.

Sylar raised his hammer threateningly, and snarled; "I swear I will kill you! Get out of my head!" _I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. I'm NOT crazy!_

Peter raised his hands in a gesture of non-threatening surrender, still breathing hard from his dash up the stairs. "Calm down. I'm telling you the _truth_. I've came to take you out of here."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Sylar asked, tilting his head in perplexion.

"I went to Parkman's house to look for you. He put you here. _This_, is a dream." The hallucination of Peter spoke slowly and deliberately, earnestly trying to convince the serial killer with the hammer.

"It's not a dream!" Sylar snapped back. _You wake up from dreams. _"This is real." It was the one cold fact he had, and he couldn't afford to lose sight of it. Not now, not with his mind so close to this madness.

Peter's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "You really don't understand that this is all just a nightmare?"

"Hell yes it's a nightmare, three years completely alone." Sylar glanced around, half-expecting the walls of reality to start crushing in around him. This mirage was really doing a number on his head.

"Not years, _hours_. Alright? Parkman trapped you here." Peter's voice sounded so earnest, so simple, so reasonable. How could a madness-induced illusion sound so sane? His words, however, made no sense.

"Parkman?" Sylar scoffed. "It's impossible."

"Is it?" Peter persisted. "What's the last thing you remember, before coming here?"

"I remember," Sylar paused, unconsciously lowered his hammer, and thought back to his life before the world was a hollow shell. "-wanting my life to change- thinking I was going to spend all of eternity alone..." He felt vulnerable saying the words aloud, even to a hallucination.

"Exactly. And here you are," Peter confirmed, stepping closer. "Look, I've got Parkman's ability, I can take you out of here." Peter's eyes were so intense, steady and focused, holding Sylar's gaze with such determination, like there was nothing else in the world. And, well, there wasn't.

Sylar wanted so badly to believe those eyes were real, that those _words _were real, but they just didn't add up. "Why would you want to do that?" Sylar asked tentatively. "The brother of the man I murdered coming to my aid?"

Peter's countenance darken at the mention of his brother, but his tone remained calm. "Because I need you to help me," he admitted, clearly not liking this fact. "Look, I could leave you here to rot," he continued callously, but then his tone turned unexpectedly desperate. "But I need you to save her- my friend, Emma. In the dream, you save her before she kills thousands of people."

_That figures, it's always about saving __someone__. Stupid me for believing, even for a moment, it was __me__. _

"Yeah, you've got the wrong guy," Sylar retorted. "I'm not the 'saving' type. You should know that better than anybody."

"It's gonna happen," Peter insisted assuredly. "And you're gonna save her."

Sylar scoffed. Honestly, the guy had some gall busting into _his _home, insisting the whole world was just his imagination, and telling him what he would or wouldn't do in the future. Sylar put the hammer down on the table, he didn't need it to win this dispute.

"Fine. You really think you can get us out of here?" Sylar challenged, starring Peter down with matching intensity. "Let me see you _try_." It was a conflict Sylar wouldn't mind losing, but knew all too well he was gonna win. "Go ahead," He taunted, sensing Peter's hesitance.

Peter nodded, guardedly placed his hand on Sylar's shoulder, closed his eyes, and concentrated. Three beats passed. Peter's eyes flew open, and his brow knit in confusion. Nothing had happened.

Sylar tilted his head and stared down at the Italian condescending. "See? We're not going anywhere."

Peter snatched his hand away faster than if it were in a bear trap.

"We're trapped here, forever." Sylar mercilessly threw the truth in Peter's face, part of him enjoying the look of dawning horror it elicited from the empath, as the realization finally sunk in.

For a long moment they both just stood there, Sylar's ominous words hanging in the air like a death sentence. Then Peter took four shaky steps backwards, and bolted out the open door.

Sylar was on his heels in a heartbeat, driven by an arresting desperation to keep Peter in his sight, for fear the empath would disappear the minute he turned a bend.

Even if Peter _was _nothing more than his imagination, could madness really be worse than the harrowing despair he'd been living with these past three years?

Turns out Peter wasn't really that hard to tail. Hero-types had a tendency to run a straight and narrow path, which made pursuing them pretty straight forward. Besides which, Sylar knew these streets, and he had longer legs. It didn't take him long to catch up.

Peter must have realized how irrational he was being, because he finally slowed down. However he still looked mad at having been chased after, and he snapped irritably; "If you think I'm just a figment of your imagination, why are you following me, huh?"

"Take a look around Peter; it's not like there's a whole lot _else_ to do here." Sylar retorted, widely gesturing at the empty skyscrapers stretching up above them. "And I'm sure as hell not gonna let you mess with my mind and then just disappear like that's _okay _or something."

For the first time since he'd arrived, Peter really seemed to be looking at the world around them. "Just how big is your head anyhow?" He asked.

"How many times do I have to tell you _Boy Wonder_, this isn't a _dream_!" Sylar exclaimed exasperatedly. "I wish it was- but the fact is everyone's dead but _me_," and at this he reached out to grab Peter's shoulders and swing him around to face him. _He's still physically tangible- that's promising._ "and apparently _you_. Welcome to Hell."


End file.
